Brenda Minton - The Cowboy's Sweetheart

“If you need to talk…” Wyatt followed him up the steps to the back door, and then he shrugged. They’d never been touchy-feely. Sharing was for afternoon talk shows, not the Johnson brothers. They’d always solved their problems, even dealt with their anger, by roping a few calves or riding hard through the back field.

Every now and then they’d had a knock-down-drag-out in the backyard. Those fights had ended with the two of them on their backs, staring up at the sky, out of breath, but out of anger.

Talking about it didn’t seem like an option.

“Yeah, I know we can talk.” Ryder put his niece down on the floor and flipped on the kitchen light. Kat stomped around in his boots, leaving dirt smudges on the floor he’d mopped last night. “Did you guys eat?”

He looked around. There was an open loaf of bread on the counter and a jar of peanut butter, the lid next to it. He glanced down at Kat. She had a smear of peanut butter on her cheek. He twisted the bread closed.

“Did you feed the girls?” Ryder asked again when Wyatt hadn’t answered.

“Molly made sandwiches.”

“And you think that’s good?” A three-year-old making sandwiches. Ryder screwed the lid on the peanut butter because he had to do something to keep from pushing his brother into a wall to knock sense into him. “Girls, are you hungry?”

Kat grinned and Molly looked at her dad. Ryder exhaled a lot of anger. He didn’t have a clue what little kids ate. Wyatt should have a clue. If Wyatt couldn’t do this, how in the world was Ryder going to manage?

“Tell you what, I’ll make eggs and toast. Do you like eggs?” Ryder opened the fridge door.

“I can do it.” Wyatt took the carton of eggs from his hands.

“You girls go play.” Ryder smiled at his nieces. “I think there’s a box of toys in the living room. Mostly horses and cowboys.”

His and Wyatt’s toys that Ryder had dug out of a back closet the night before.

When the girls were gone, he turned back to his brother. Wyatt cracked eggs into a bowl and he didn’t look up. “I’ve taken care of them for a year.”

“Yeah, I know you have.”

The dog scratched at the back door. Ryder pushed it open and let the animal in, because there was one thing Bear was good at, and that was cleaning up stuff that dropped on the floor. Stuff like peanut butter sandwiches.

Bear sniffed his way into the kitchen and licked the floor clean, except he left the mud. Not that Ryder blamed him for that.

The dog was the best floor sweeper in the country.

“I’m taking care of my girls.” Wyatt poured eggs into the pan. “And I don’t want tips from a guy who hasn’t had kids, or hasn’t had a relationship in his life that lasted more than a month.”

“That’s about to change.” Ryder muttered and he sure hadn’t meant to open that can of worms. He’d meant to butter toast.

“What’s that mean?” Wyatt turned the stove off.

“Remember what it was like, growing up in this house?”

“Sure, I remember.” Wyatt scooped eggs onto four plates. “Always laughter, mostly the drunken kind that ended in a big fight by the end of the night. And then there were the phone calls.”

Phone calls their mother received from the other women. Ryder shook his head, because memories were hard to shake. His dad’s temper had been hard to hide from.

“Right. That’s not the kind of life our kids should have.” Ryder let out a sigh, because he had been holding on to those memories for a long time.

“Well, as far as I know, the only kids in this house are mine, and they’re not going to have that life, not in this house. If you’re insinuating…”

“I’m not insinuating anything about you or how you’re raising those girls.” Ryder tossed a slice of buttered toast to his blue heeler. “Wyatt, there isn’t a person around who blames you for having a hard time right now.”

“I guess this isn’t about me, is it?”

No, but it would have been nice to pretend it was. Ryder shrugged and poured himself a cup of that morning’s coffee. He ignored his brother and slid the coffee into the microwave.

“No, it isn’t about you.” He took his cup of day old coffee out of the microwave. “I’m going outside.”

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